Weeds do so much cooling, aerating and stabilizing of vacant lots and roadsides that Harvard horticulturist Peter Del Tredici has taken to celebrating them as “spontaneous urban vegetation.”
But when a mother lode of seed from these fast-breeding, water-hungry plants germinates in a garden, particularly a drought-tolerant garden in Southern California, it’s war. It’s a water war.
By weeding after winter rains, you can allocate water to the right plants and cut off the thirsty interlopers. You’ll snare the seeds of weeds before they can spread. You’ll also clear out a sweaty little under-zone of greedy greens that block air and light from the plants that you want to thrive.

Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times. Or click here to read about Tredici’s intriguing new book “Wild urban plants of the northeast,” keeping in mind that, thanks to us, many of those plants now exist in the west. For a history of the dandelion, click here, or for background on the chemical war waged on the plant each spring, here.